MLK weekend Frank and Brynn wanted to do a trip with Cort and I. After waiting till the snow fall and the arctic front had a full grip on the region we decided to head to Stevens pass for some touring. I really wanted to get some climbing in since the weather was going to be so nice, albeit freaking cold. A compromise reached that Frank and I would climb Chair PK on Friday and the girls would meet us at Adams house in Seattle. Thursday night Frank and I loaded up and drove to Alpental for some quick zzz's. Alarm off 5 minutes of sleep we were ready. Man it was cold. Security guard said it was around 5 deg and I believed him. Skinning once on the right track was fast. Snow was deep, thank god for AT gear. After about half an hour my toes were frozen so it tossed in some foot warmers and relief, hand were alternating between warm and cold. We reached a bowl where we had to ditch our skis. Now the fun began. Boot packing in deep snow up to a ridge line that would take us to the base of our route. It was mainly mid shin to knee deep. That was lot of fun. The best part was trying not to set off a slid on the wrong side of the ridge. Fall line was about 500 Ft over a cliff.
The photo on the bottom is of Chair PK. Frank is breaking trail while I took some pictures. The North Face is in the shade. Our route takes us up the slope just to the left of the small dark rock band at the bottom center of the NF. Yes it is as steep as it looks and in places steeper. We followed a straight line to the rock in the sun at the top of the peak. Frank fired off the first pitch, it was steep and mostly good ice. The start was tricky which was fun when Frank yelled down that he needed 10 more Ft then another 10 Ft after I had yanked the belay was heading up. Finally on belay I could climb with some security. The hardest part of the first pitch was the initial 100 Ft or so. Good ice but it was about 70 deg with a could of moves on 80 deg ice.
Good spiciness!!!! I reached Frank only to realize that he was belaying of the smallest of bushes. Trees were not too much further so I headed up to them and belayed Frank up to a much better belay. The photo to the above is a look down the first pitch and the one on the right is looking up pitch two (borrowed from another TR cause my camera froze in the cold). Now for the real second pitch and my turn on the sharp end. The start was good but the snow/ice quickly turned to breakable crust with sugar under, at bit unnerving to say the least. Bet bet was to keep
moving and not think about it. I was sending a lot of ice and snow down on top of Frank and understandably he was not too happy about this. Oh well. As I headed further up conditions deteriorated more and more. Soon I was on 60-70 degree sugar and hoping to God that I did not blow as step or tool placement. Give you a feel for how steep that is, look to the photo above. A fall would have been a long ways and most likely would have ripped all the protection that I had placed. I had Frank yank the belay so I could reach some trees. Stopping short of the trees I placed two pickets and belayed Frank up. My hands were like wooden blocks at this point. Taking off my gloves I realized what kind of shape I was in, BAD!!!! My hands were very pale, cold and swollen. Nothing to do but get Frank up and get the heck out of there. Frank took us to the false summit and that is where we topped out. It was an exercise in wallowing on steep slopes. The final 50 vertical Ft we decided to bag cause it was late and my hands were no good. We rapped off a tree after some downclimbing to the top of a couloir. At this point we ran the rope through some old frozen webbing attached to two rusty old pins. The seemed good enough, we hoped. Frank went down first while I attended some "business." The rap was into a very steep couloir that was 6 Ft wide with a huge cornice at the top. My thoughts were to rap very gently cause if that thing went we were both dead. Rapped off another set of old pins about half way down and we were out of there. What a great day!! I want to do more steep ice/snow climbing, so much fun. Can't wait till my hand heal and more routes come into shape.
The swelling started to go down and was complete by Tuesday. Well all but both my middle fingers. A redness had developed in my right middle finger and was creeping up into my palm on top of my hand. A bit worried I finally paged the doc. His offices were closed due to snow and ice covering Portland. He urged me to head straight to the ER for treatment. As it turns out I was getting a secondary infection from the blisters that had burst. My thinking the whole time was that I had a bad case of Frostnip. The ER doc agreed. After some research on the internet it turns out that I had second degree Frostbite. I did not get the intense pain indicated from here http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000057.htm . This web site give the degrees http://www.outdoorplaces.com/Features/Mountain/frostbite/ . The doc put me on some potent antibiotics and cut into the knuckle to drain as much fluid as possible.
